Age Of Dragons: Biology

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Anatomy of a Dragon

An adult dragon is quadripedal, with long neck and tail, and reptillian heads. They have two leathery wings together equal in span to their full nose-tail length when fully spread. These wings emerge from the dragon's back, near the shoulders. On the ground, an adult dragon stands at around four and a half metres tall at the shoulder, with three metres of neck length, four of tail, and three of torso.

Dragon skin is scaled, with huge overlapping armour plates over the chest, the back of the body, dorsal limb surfaces and upper head, and leathery skin with fine scales over the abdomen, ventral limb surfaces, face and wing edges. The wing membranes themselves are not scaled, but are smooth and lightly translucent. Dragons do not have hair, though some sport manes of fine leathery spines that might be mistaken from a distance as such.

Dragon forelimbs end in clawed hands, which have thumb-claws opposed to three jointed foreclaws, and one unjointed vestigial foreclaw. Fore-talons are typically around a third of the length of the foreclaws, and might be compared in size and sharpness to military shortswords. Foreclaws are slightly curved. A dragon has a surprising amount of dexterity for their foreclaws - greater than that of a human hand when taken in size proportion, but limited in fine control by sheer size. Regardless, a dragon is still capable of gentle and controlled touch, able to pick an ant of a leaf without harming it should he wish to do so.

Dragon rearlimbs are more muscular, and though less dextrous have a great deal more power. So long as they can push off with their rear limbs from solid ground, dragons can easily launch themselves into flight with a standing jump. Rear-talons are slightly longer than fore-talons, but have no opposed thumb so cannot manipulate so well. A dragon will typically bring in its rear talons to fight only when airborne, though of course it will readily use tooth and foreclaw whether airborne or grounded.

A dragon's teeth are clearly carnivorous, and for most breeds are found in a single serrated row each in the upper and lower jaw, with slightly larger canine fangs on both lower and upper jaw. A dragon's mucuous membranes (and indeed its viscera) are purple-red, as is its blood, regardless of scale colour. As the popular dragon-saying goes "our scales are different, but our blood and breath are the same".

Male dragons have paired horns. The appearance of these horns varies according to breed, but they are always male-specific. There are numerous other "tells" as to the gender of a dragon - males tend to have more elongated facial features and their central chest plates are single-file, whereas females have dual-file chest plates, more angled dorsal spines, and a generally less-shoulder heavy build, but stronger rear limb muscles. Both genders are similarly coloured and sized, with notable exceptions for only a couple of breeds.

For dragons, of course, the difference in gender is intuitive and obvious, and there are many other physical features that might be considered feminine or masculine, though these vary with breed and culture. For both genders, depth and homogeneity of colour, and strong features distinctive to particular breeds are considered to be very attractive.

Physiology of a Dragon

Internal Physiology

Dragons appear reptillian, but have only some reptillian traits. Though they have scales and are hairless, they are warm blooded capable of maintaining their body temperatures in a wide range of environments. Dragons require a diet of meat to survive, and also need to drink water, and sleep regularly just as all other creatures do. They are prone to diseases and other infirmities, but due to their stronger constitution than most creatures are vulnerable only to the most potent of infections.

A curious property of the dragon's physiology is an almost complete immunity to fire. A dragon can be exposed to the flames of a raging blast furnace, and neither feel pain nor come to harm. In fact, extreme heat is a somewhat pleasant sensation for dragons, and courting rituals will often begin with mutual dousing in fire-breath.

Pneuma, Life and Aging

Dragons believe that the key element to animation and life is breath. A dragon feels quite physically nauseous if forced to hold his breath for any length of time, and is most comfortable when taking slow rumbling deep breaths. For a Dragon breath, or pneuma, is synonymous with life and with magic. If something does not breathe, it has no soul. If something does breathe, it is inherently magical. Dragons note that as they are able to breathe so much harder and deeper than lesser creatures, they have greater command of the magic of the world. Dragons know that without animating pneuma their bodies are little more than dead stone and clay.

This belief is not entirely unfounded - as a dragon ages, his internal magic stagnates somewhat, and his body begins to calcify. In the last century of his life (which tends to be around a thousand years in all) his scales will slowly transmute to stone, and his breaths will grow quieter and shallower. Eventually, when he dies of old age his flesh will into grey unmoving stone, and his breath will cease altogether. Dragons call this the "sleep of stone", and those who die in this way will not rot, but their physical forms will last as well as any marble statue. Dragons who die before old age of other causes (such as violence, starvation or disease) do not attain the sleep of stone, but instead rot like other mortal creatures, though the older they are at time of death, the longer they take to decompose.

Reproduction

Dragons reproduce through male-femate mating pairings, with intercourse typically taking place belly-to-belly in mid-flight, but sometimes (less romantically) in mounting position on the ground. Dragon fertility is incredibly low, and a pair of dragons will on average try for pregnancy for anything from a dozen years to a century or more before conceiving. Unlike most animals, dragons reach the peak of fertility in older age. In the last century before death they have a good chance of conceiving from even a single encounter, whereas in the first few centuries of life it is almost impossible for a dragon to become a parent.

Pregnancies last around thirty six months, and at the end of this period the mother will lay a hatchery of one to three eggs. The eggs then become dormant, and will not hatch until exposed to a high degree of heat, usually in the form of fire-breath, though a bonfire will also suffice. A "cold egg" can be left for centuries or even millennia without hatching, and the infant dragon within will come to no harm from this. Dragon eggs are perfectly smooth, and hard as marble. Mortals might mistake them for sculptures of precious worked stones, as there is little that seems organic about them.

When an egg is hatched, the parents will feel a palpable flow of life-force energies from themselves to the egg, permanently weakening them. The more eggs that hatch, the weaker the parents grow, and it is not unknown for parents to die in hatching a large brood. If one parent is already dead, then the surviving parent makes twice the life-force sacrifice. If both parents are dead (or if there are so many eggs that the parents die before feeding the life energies of all the brood), then the orphan hatchling will not be a dragon, but rather a foul Wyvern (see below).

Hatchlings at birth are around half as tall as a human being, and in the first dozen years of life will grow extremely rapidly, achieving two thirds of their adult size during that time. They will continue to grow gradually until the age of fifty years or so, after which they will not get any larger. They reach their adult intellectual capacity at the age of fifty years as well, though by 12 years of age they are already able to outreason and out-think most adult humans.

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